Diamond sits up, looks up. She knows it, of course. Anyone raised under the canopy of the Church would. “A stonehunter, working alone, was exploring an asteroid zie landed on.”

She pauses, looking for guidance, and Misery reels a thread forward: “Zie explored, but the surface was harsh and jagged, its dust as barren as the void. All zie found…”

“All zie found was a series of scattered outcroppings. Silver and covered in carvings. Zie thought they were important, but could not make out what they were for. They seemed entirely random. Meaningless.”

Misery says, encouragingly: “Zie climbed up and down the mysterious pillars, scanned them, even tried explosives to take pieces of them. Still they eluded hir. Until…”

“Until zie sat down,” Diamond says. “Exhausted and despondent, zie sat upon a rock outcropping high over the asteroid’s surface. And zie saw that the outcroppings made a pattern. Up close, zie had only seen strange pillars, and zie thought the pillars were the whole story. Fooled by the size and shape of the stone, zie thought they were hir reward. But they were not. Zie could not see the pattern, until zie had stopped hir questing and simply … looked from afar. From that lofty vantage point, the pillars formed an arrow. A gesture, a direction. Zie followed the guidance of the pillars and found a cavern full of treasure. A crown of holy ruby. Engines for a ship. And hir faith in the Larex Forge.”

Misery nods. “Do you understand?”

Diamond folds her hands together, her expression softening. “The Larex Forge always has a plan, a reason for things happening. Even if we can’t see it for ourselves. From above, from Hir vantage over us, there is a pattern.”

“That’s right. So it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand why you were saved. You were, and that’s the important part. The Larex Forge has a plan for you, even if you cannot see it.”

“No. You’re wrong.”

“I’m listening.” She enjoys the steel that has crept into her captain’s voice. And she does listen, even though Diamond telegraphs her thoughts clearly on her face. She knows what’s coming.

“I can see the Forge’s plan for me. I see it clearly now. The last few months … I doubted, at first. But not anymore. I know I was saved to fight, and I know that together we will deal the fatal blow that will destroy the Heretics. The reason I told you all this—the reason I started speaking in the first place—is I simply wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know the sins of my past. So that—so that you’d know. So that you could absolve me. Then I could stand by your side bright as a star, banishing the void.”